


there are worse places to die

by trash_devil



Category: South Park
Genre: Death, Implied/Referenced Self Harm, Kissing, M/M, alcohol mention, drug mention, dumb gay boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 18:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19978309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_devil/pseuds/trash_devil
Summary: “If I die,” Kenny began once their lips parted.“Not yet,” Stan answered.





	there are worse places to die

“There are worse places to die,” Stan whispered against his skin.

It tasted like reassurance, it tasted like promise. Strange words to speak as if nothing could ever go wrong, as if nothing had ever gone wrong.

_(but everything had, everything, everything, in the darkness that twisted and thrashed within his ribcage, in the faint marks across Stan’s wrist. There are worse places to die.)_

And all Kenny could do was hum in vague agreement, because there were. He knew. He knew. 

He had died there, once, twice, a thousand times in this town thick with death. Had tasted the dirt of all their graves.

“There are better places, too.”

Stan laughed, a low chuckle so different from the bright laughter of their youth, worn by sorrow and fear and exhaustion. “It’s easier not to hope.”

His eyes were as blue as the sky, as the promise of night. Blue, nearly black and dark, dark, dark.

Dark as the beast that lived in Kenny’s heart.

“You don’t like to try, do you?”

“I’m trying right now.”

“Try harder.”

Again, that laugh. “So demanding.” His fingers _(cold, knuckles bruised, fingernails bitten)_ found Kenny’s _(weathered and knobby and covered in bandages)._ His free hand gestured up to where the moon hung fat in the sky. “Do you want me to carve out a piece of it and bring it back down to you?”

“I want you to kiss me.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

_(yes, a thousand times yes)_

“Okay.”

Alcohol and bile, the flavor of Stan.

Weed and candy, the flavor of Kenny.

He wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“If I die,” Kenny began once their lips parted.

“Not yet,” Stan answered.

“What?”

“You won’t die yet. Not here.” And he closed his eyes and smiled.

A sad little smile. Here, under the moonlight, he looked unfairly angelic. 

_(a strange thing to say, about a child once chosen by the Devil.)_

“Why not here? There are worse places,” Kenny said, echoing his words. 

“Only at the end, my dear,” he said.

Even now, those last two words had the power to make his heart flutter, his cheeks burn. 

“What end?”

“Ours. When we can go together.”

Impossible, Kenny wanted to say. But he held his tongue.

And then on one day in the indeterminate future, Stan proved him wrong.

There were worse places to die than in your lover’s arms.

There were worse people to hold as he left the world behind once and for all.

“I told you,” Stan said, the laughter in his voice untainted by the chains of life. 

Kenny laughed too.

And this time, there were no crawling shadows to drag him back.


End file.
